The International Olympic Committee (IOC) wants us to call London 2012 the "social media Olympics".  They think there will be more photos, videos, tweets and Facebook posts shared about this summer's Games than about any other sporting event in history. 

The founder of the Modern Olympics Movement wanted the Games to help people "understand each other despite any differences", and London 2012 should facilitate that better than ever by allowing more people to share their experiences and opinions. This year's Games should be an example of how technology can help people see a variety of perspectives and engage with all of them.

It all sounds marvellous, but while technology is making it easier for the Olympics to live up to these liberal values, the laws the Government has put in place in advance of London 2012 are making it harder. The laws are to protect sponsors from anything that threatens their brand or broadcasting rights, and they fly in the face of what the Games are supposed to stand for. It's necessary to protect sponsors in order to bring them on board, and without sponsors the Games couldn't take place.  I accept that, but the upshot is the awkward problem that the commercial model for the Games enables them to exist at the same time as undermining their reasons for existing in the first place.


Given these are supposed to be the "social media Olympics" it's mind-boggling to look at the restrictions to what people can actually share online. This is from the terms and conditions of ticket purchase: "Images, video and sound recordings of the Games taken by a Ticket Holder cannot be used for any purpose other than for private and domestic purposes and a Ticket Holder may not license, broadcast or publish video and/or sound recordings, including on social networking websites and the internet more generally, and may not exploit images, video and/or sound recordings for commercial purposes under any circumstances, whether on the internet or otherwise, or make them available to third parties for commercial purposes."

Right then.

Ester Adley in the Guardian writes that pubs can be forced to take down signs saying: "Watch the London Games on our big screen". She writes about the possibility of London 2012-approved "branding police" taping over the logos on the soap dispensers and toilets at Olympic sites. The London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act (passed in 2006) allows police to enter homes to take down posters that conflict with sponsors' rights. These aren't just civil laws, they're criminal ones, so people who break them could be imprisoned.


On the one hand the London Games are supposed to be conversational and respectful of many points of view. On the other hand in practice they look illiberal and authoritarian. 

The organisers will try to control what is shared on social media, and what is seen on broadcasts of the Games, incredibly tightly. 

On goes the tension between technology which liberates communication and the attempt of authorities to control it. It will be interesting to watch how effectively London 2012 actually manages to manipulate what happens on social media though, as the latter have a habit of out-manoeuvring anyone that wants to police their content.  The last word goes to the "official Olympic protesters": "Twitter. That harbour of free speech, undaunted by various Arab dictators. However, it seems that a quick word from LOCOG, the unelected body in charge of the 2012 Olympic Games, is enough to encourage Twitter to suspend our account. Apparently there's a danger people might think we're part of the Olympic delivery team."

Emily Evans is the contributing editor for the innovation community at The Economist.

Following a disappointing last race in the World Cup series we are now altitude training in the Austrian Alps. Losing the last race shows that if we are slightly off our best then we could do quite badly. It also shows me that the margins in our event are very tight and if we make a small improvement we can still do better than we ever have!

It is now only about a month to the Games and it feels good to get away and fully focus on training. We all know that every day counts and I think this is the best place for being focused.

As you'll see (pictured below), the scenery is very good but we won't be spending long admiring the view. We row on a dammed lake with very cold water running straight from the glacier about two kilometres up the valley.

I am reminded of GCSE geography as I spot the glacial features. We live in wooden huts which soon resemble a sauna where someone has spilt something other than water on the coals; this is because the walls are pine and we have a lot of wet kit which needs to be dried on the powerful radiators. The fact I have packed a can of Febreze gives me away as an older member of the team...

We have built our own rowing course across the lake so we don't crash into each other and we use indoor rowers and weights in a large garage under a hotel building. This is as close as we get to Rocky's training programme from the films!

Luckily we do get our food from the hotel and as far as I'm concerned it's the best we get anywhere we travel. The Austrians like a bit of stodge and so do I. There are plenty of dumplings for the main course and heavy cakes for dessert – it's the old fashioned carbohydrate diet I was used to 20 years ago when I first came to this place. It hasn't changed much since 1991 but it doesn't need to: this is a work camp and we are working hard.


We know from the beating we took in Munich that we need to step on and we are all prepared to do what it takes to make sure we are at our best in London at the end of July.

I have recently enjoyed [former tennis champion] Andre Agassi's autobiography, Open, and the first chapter made me laugh. In it he hauls his broken body from bed in order to go and play a match. His kids are desperate for him to lose as they know this is his final event. Once he's out he will be able to be a "proper dad" and buy them a dog.

I know my kids are feeling exactly the same but luckily I don't have to lose to end my career. I have made the same promise to my little ones but hopefully I won't be totally broken and I won't go out on the same note. I want to be in a position to give the dog the same name we gave our cat in 1987 when my brother, Jonny, first won the World Junior Championships: Goldie.

Greg Searle is a BT Ambassador. BT is the official communications services partner for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. For more details click here. 

Blake Aldridge doesn't look or sound like an anti-hero. The very name suggests more matinee idol than panto villain but it was one that emerged from the Beijing Olympics cast in the role of the bad guy who stabbed the juvenile lead in the back. Not so much Big Brother as Wicked Uncle.

Or so it was portrayed after he and Tom Daley publicly fell out of synch in the diving competition, finishing eighth when it was hoped they would get a medal, with the 12 years older Aldridge (pictured below) accused of heaping the blame on his young partner and plaintively phoning his mum in the crowd during the 10 metres final. Subsequently he was vilified, critics attacking him for "spewing out a stream of bile" and "an act of betrayal" against Tiny Tom.

Aldridge has always insisted that this wasn't true. But now that the Water Cube waves have abated they have gone their separate ways, Daley onwards to 2012 with a new partner and Aldridge into waters new where, quite literally, he has landed on his feet after a few turbulent tumbles in his private life.

He is in his first full season as a pro on the Red Bull world cliff diving circuit, a somewhat perilous occupation which involves hurling himself from three times the height of his former 10-metre board into lakes, rivers or the sea, always hitting the water feet-first "Otherwise," he says," the impact from that height would be too dangerous.

"It is like jumping from the equivalent of a 10-story building, hitting the water at up to 90kph. If it goes wrong it can be like hitting concrete, you'd probably split you head open." Which actually he once did when practising as a youngster in his home pool of Southampton.

Aldridge also hit rock bottom amid the formal split with Daley which finally came two years after Bejiing. He was twice accused of shoplifting, once from a local B&Q – the same store where he used to work part-time – after putting 30 pence worth of copper fittings in his pocket and walking out forgetfully.


Then he was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting and causing actually bodily harm in Tesco, although the case was dismissed. There was also a nightclub fracas in which he duly proved he was the innocent – and injured – party (pictured below).

"It wasn't the best period of my life," he acknowledges. "I was struggling and I was unlucky."

It was also clear that the Ant and Dec of diving's double act was over when Alexei Evangulov, the Russian performance director of British Diving, told Aldridge he would be selected for neither the World Championships nor the Commonwealth Games. One of the reasons was that he felt Daley needed a younger partner. Ironically Daley's current synchro sidekick, Pete Waterfield, is 31 – a year older than Aldridge.

"I wondered then how I was going to get out of this dark hole," he confesses. "I wasn't in a good place. I needed to do something different."

He worked on a Caribbean cruise ship for five months in a diving show and was persuaded by a friend to enter the European Cliff Diving Championships, which he won. The following year he won again, and last year was invited as a guest diver for two stops on the Red Bull tour; this year he has qualified as a full-time member of the 11-man circuit which carries four-figure prize money.


His first event was plunging into the harbour at La Rochelle in France before a crowd of 70,000. "The routine consists of multiple somersaults and twists marked on a ten points system as in orthodox diving," Aldridge explains.

Diving from a 28-metre clifftop, he says, is both frightening and mentally challenging. "You stand there thinking, 'Wow, should I be doing this? I shouldn't be here. Why am I here?' To do it you must be prepared to push the boundaries at all costs."

When we spoke he was preparing to dive off a Corsican cliff. As it happened, he sustained an injury which has put him out of action for a spell, tearing an adductor muscle when he hit the water unevenly on a wave.

"There's always a risk," Aldridge says. "You have to be a lot mentally stronger and tougher to cope with the fear, the danger and excitement that comes with it. It's not so much a physical thing; because the impact is so hard you are always really liable for an injury."

He adds: "I believe everything happens for a reason, and if what happened in Beijing hadn't happened then I wouldn't be here doing this where I am having a much better life and a much better time. It's the old cliché: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I am in a better frame of mind and a better shape physically than I have ever been in my life."

The tour (pictured below) also embraces Naples, Norway, Dubai, the Azores, Ukraine, Oman, the Hawkesbury river in Australia and diving from an art gallery in Boston, USA. It visits the United Kingdom for the first time in Pembrokeshire, Wales, on September 7 and 8. And Aldridge will be diving at Serpent's Lair in Ireland on August 4 – his 30th birthday.


But wouldn't he prefer to be diving in the Olympics? "Of course I would," he insists. "But would that be any good for me? Probably not, because the media would pick up on everything: 'That's Blake Aldridge, the one that's famous for falling out with Tom Daley in 2008'. I am now in a place where I don't have that in the background. And I am doing well and enjoying it."

His long-time sponsors, the Apogee Corporation, have stuck by him and Aldridge adds: "To be honest, I feel I have been there, done that. I am out of that side of things now. I feel I am doing something bigger and better. I no longer have to commit myself six days a week, training six to eight hours a day and seeing only the four walls inside a swimming pool."

Aldridge's new life affords him a comfortable, all-expenses paid living: "I am now going to some of the most exotic and beautiful locations in the world. It is a fantastic way of life. There are medals and trophies, and I've got money in my pocket.

"It's extreme and dangerous, every ingredient that makes me mentally and physically the person I am. It pushes me further than I ever did."

He says he will be keeping an eye on the Olympic diving events, possibly as a TV commentator. "Of course I wish Tom well. I think he and Pete are both capable of getting individual and synchro medals.

"Pete and I are good mates; I was best man at his wedding. But he is now having to deal with what I had. However, don't get me wrong, we all know what we are entering into. You may be a partnership but Tom is always going to be the one in the spotlight.


"I am not jealous of Tom," he insists. "There's no bitterness, no animosity, and certainly no envy. He has done a fantastic thing for British diving. There is now funding in this sport and it is because of him. I wish him the best of luck."

While their partnership (pictured above) in Beijing appeared less than harmonious Aldridge claims it was never that bad. "People wrote and said some nasty things and it really started to get to me," he tells me. "While I was out there I got quite a few tasty emails. I was made out to be an a*sehole and a mummy's boy.

"The point is, neither Tom nor myself dived anywhere near as well as we could. People said I was blaming him for our performance, but the fact is I admitted I didn't dive well either, although I did score more than Tom and that never normally happened. I never said it was his fault that we didn't perform, but I know what this phenomenal kid is capable of.

"Obviously there will be a lot of media pressure and expectations for Tom but I would say he is better equipped for it than anyone else in the British team. He has been under pressure since he was 13."

Aldridge still occasionally sends Daley, now 18, messages of congratulations although he admits communication is pretty much one way. Not that it bothers him. "I had a tough time," he maintains, "but I got out of it. And I am proud of that."

For further news about Aldridge click here and for the Red Bull tour click here.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

Two years ago, it looked odds-on that the 2020 European Championship would be staged in Turkey.

An impressive campaign for Euro 2016, in which the Turks were edged out by France, many thought unluckily, allied to a vibrant economy and the scale to cope with the tournament's expansion to 24 teams, left the strong impression that Ankara's claim to Euro 2020 (pictured below, logo) would be all but irresistible – if they decided that they wanted the competition.

Now, following UEFA boss Michel Platini's idea, aired over the weekend, that Euro 2020 could be hosted by a succession of cities across a range of European countries, the continent's footballing elite could be heading just about anywhere.

What has put the cat among the pigeons is Istanbul's emergence as a strongly-fancied candidate city for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

It would be out of the question for Turkey to stage both events during the same summer, so it is doubtless prudent for UEFA to craft a Plan B.

Although, having said that, the Olympic schedule – with the 2020 Summer Games host due to be chosen in September 2013 – ostensibly leaves enough time for UEFA's Turkish option to be pursued should Istanbul be thwarted by Tokyo or Madrid, its Olympic rivals.

UEFA will not, after all, make its decision on the host – or hosts – of Euro 2020 until May 2014.

But I don't know of anyone who was expecting Platini to float something so radical; in the political arena, it would be labelled 'blue-sky thinking'.


Since the dawn of international sports tournaments more than a century ago, the template has been basically the same: a host city, or country, is chosen; they gear up for the invasion; competitors congregate there at the appointed moment and set about their business until the champion, or champions, emerge.

Just about the biggest structural innovation over all this time has been to allow two countries – Japan/South Korea; Gabon/Equatorial Guinea; Belgium/Holland – to co-host.

Now, perhaps because of the sheer weight of demands placed on the hosts of the bigger sports tournaments, perhaps because of opportunities to drum up more revenues, new approaches are starting to be suggested.

One of these came up in 2010, during the race for the 2022 World Cup, won eventually by Qatar.

Japan, one of the Gulf state's rivals, suggested transmitting life-sized 3D images of World Cup matches in real time to audiences all over the world.


This would result in not just one nation hosting the World Cup but 208, enthused the country's bid chairman.

"Japan [would be] just the coordinator."

As many as 360 million people would be able to have a full-stadium experience of matches, it was claimed.

Assuming the technology worked, this type of innovation could certainly add a new, er, dimension to the experience of fans attempting to follow the matches from their home country.

The competition itself, though, would have proceeded in a single host country, much as usual.

Platini's (pictured above) idea, though for the moment seemingly light on detail, would do away with the whole notion of a host country for Euro 2020.

Instead, the most devoted fans would apparently be able to follow their teams on an odyssey from Baku to Stockholm to Barcelona, or whatever cities had won the right to stage tournament matches.

In this respect, I imagine fans' experience would be more akin to following their club side through a series of matches in one of the big European club competitions.

The concept raises all manner of questions: Would fans miss the distinctive tournament atmosphere that brews when an event is in a specific city or country? Would Platini's concept be more, or less, environmentally-friendly than a traditional tournament? Would teams with cities hosting the competition be able to play "home" games? And many more.

What, I must admit, most intrigues me is the timing of Platini's comments in the context of the rumbling Eurozone crisis.


I'm a benevolent being, so let's assume for now that the euro (the currency) survives – an outcome that, to be plausible, will seemingly entail a far greater degree of fiscal integration among the countries using it in coming years than exists at present.

Under such circumstances, Platini's concept of a Euro (the tournament) of the cities would fit in perfectly.

This is because, while the powers of national Governments would necessarily have to be very much truncated, the role of local authorities, urban and rural, would, I fancy, be augmented.

This would be to enhance people's sense of control over local affairs, while compensating for loss of influence over society's main economic levers, whose operators in Brussels and Frankfurt would appear impossibly remote.

If, though, in December or January, when UEFA bigwigs sit down to take their decision, the euro (the currency) remains under severe pressure, then I fear Platini's idea may have to be mothballed.

Why? Because we would have essentially no idea of what the economic, or even political, map of Europe would look like in 2020.

Imagine if you had sat down in 1985 and tried to predict how Europe would look in 1992.

Let's just say that you would have needed an impressively-proportioned crystal ball.


Well, if the Eurozone breaks up, it could be argued that we might be thrust into a comparable era of uncertainty.

I expect many Greeks think that we already have been.

Yes, football teams and their supporters continued to criss-cross the continent even while the Berlin wall was falling and the Balkans were in flames.

But I'm not convinced it would be the wisest course of action for UEFA to lay down plans to reshape one of its flagship tournaments so radically at a time when something as fundamental as the currency used by many of its most influential members was in question.

The wider the area the tournament is dispersed over in such circumstances, the greater you would have thought are the chances of it being somehow affected by the resulting tensions.

With interest from Azerbaijan/Georgia and Scotland/Ireland/Wales (pictured above, Hampden Park in Glasgow), other options for Euro 2020, besides Turkey and Platini's brainchild, seem likely to be available.

If, by the end of this year, Eurozone Governments have not soothed market worries about the outlook for their public finances, the UEFA President might do well to shelve his idea to await stabler times.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

The announcement of Britain's Olympic football squad has made front page news, not least because of who was left out. Back in 1956, the side for the Melbourne Games was named in instalments and they had already been knocked out of the tournament once.

For the first time, a home and away system of qualification had been introduced.

In those days British international teams were chosen by a panel of selectors.  Only then did the manager take over and on the road to Olympic qualification, Great Britain had a new man in charge: Frederick Norman Smith Creek. He had won a full cap for England back in the 1920s as a member of the Corinthians. He was known by his initials F.N.S. and was certainly an "old school amateur".

"You couldn't compare him to a manager today," said Derek Lewin of Bishop Auckland, an Olympic player in 1956.

"If you did not retreat 10 yards at a free-kick, you were not selected for the next match."

A series of practice matches was arranged against league opposition with varying degrees of success. Then came the first leg of their qualifying tie against Bulgaria in October 1955 (pictured below).

Legendary writer Geoffrey Green travelled with the team. He told his readers in The Times that he had bought a harmonica and hoped for "some street corners in Sofia". On arrival crowds lined the streets from the airport.

"No British team travelling abroad has ever received a greater welcome than our lads in Sofia. The Bulgarians greeted the team as the kings of soccer, but could not understand the absence of one king – our own Stanley Matthews," wrote Leslie Nicholls, a contributor the Wembley match programme in the 1950s.


Half-a-million applied for the 50,000 tickets available and nearly a quarter of  a million swarmed onto the streets on the day of the match as roads were cordoned off.

"The dressing rooms were the oddest I have seen," said Olympic veteran Bob Hardisty, another Bishop Auckland player. "The floors were carpeted hanging in the lockers were bathrobes and clogs. There were flowers, bowls of fruit and boxes of cigarettes around the room."

Once the match started, a corner count of 15 to two demonstrated  Bulgaria's superiority but they only scored twice. Thanks to an heroic performance from British keeper Mike Pinner, who later played for Queens Park Rangers and Manchester United as an amateur

The second leg was at Wembley the following May. British Olympic Association chairman Lord Burghley was presented to the teams as the band played Entry of the Bulgars.

Although Britain scored through Hardisty, the Bulgarians hit back to lead twice but each time Britain levelled the score on the night. Although a 3-3 draw was creditable, Bulgaria had won 5-3 on aggregate and Britain were out of the Olympics.


Very soon they were back in, at the invitation of the organisers. The sheer cost of travelling to Australia made it too expensive for some, others withdrew because of the political situation. This was the year of the Suez crisis and the Hungarian uprising.  As Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest many of Hungary's 1952 Gold medal winning team fled the country.

Not all were happy at Britain's re-instatement.

"Most officials felt that by allowing the team to play after being eliminated we were flouting the conventions of the competition," wrote Bernard Joy, himself an Olympian in 1936.  "It could not have happened in the FA Cup and the Olympics should surely have had the same strict adherence to the rules. Having been beaten, they should have remained out."

Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland decided they would not supply players "partly because of the cost and partly because the Olympics will fall in the middle of their home football season."

England decided to go it alone and clubs were asked for donations  towards the cost of the trip. The Essex County FA  chipped  in with a 100 guineas.

To prepare, the team played further practice matches. The gate money helped with the cost of the trip. Money was so tight they named the squad in instalments. Corinthian Casual David Miller, later a distinguished Olympic journalist, was one who missed out. Future England cricketer Micky Stewart was another unlucky one.

When the squad of 16 flew out, their journey was delayed by eight hours in Istanbul, when the nose wheel broke.

When they reached their destination, they discovered further withdrawals had reduced competition to 11 teams.


Aussie Rules had been included as an exhibition sport in Melbourne.

"Our kind of football was played down in the press, the radio and even in the official handouts, while the solitary exhibition of Australian Rules football was played up," complained journalist Willy Meisl.

Even so, European teams revelled in the sunshine. The Soviets blasted 15 against a local club side in practice and Britain themselves beat an Australian side 3-1 behind closed doors. They even found time to play a local school at cricket.

Before the first match Britain lost first choice keeper Mike Pinner to a hand injury but this had little effect in the first match against tournament outsiders Thailand. Charlie Twissell of the Royal Navy opened the scoring delighting sailors who had taken advantage of a spot of shore leave to come and watch. A hat-trick from Jack Layborne eased Britain to a 9-0 win.

"Our players towered over their blue clad opponents," wrote Bernard Joy. "Eleven Snow Whites against 11 Dwarfs."

Now they awaited the second round draw. It paired them with... with Bulgaria – again! "Poetic justice" said Sir Stanley Rous, secretary of the FA at the time.


The Bulgarians had received a first round bye so warmed up for the tournament with a 16-0 win against a local club side. Thus sharpened, the Bulgarians were quickly into their stride with a goal in six minutes. They were 3-1 up by half time and  added three without further reply in the second half.

"To a man the Bulgarians trapped, kicked and headed better, and indeed attempted feats that our players only try in practice," said a report at the time.

Bulgaria eventually lost to the USSR in the semis. The Soviets, helped by legendary keeper Lev Yashin (pictured above), took gold. He was just one of the players who reappeared at the World Cup two years later.

The British muttered darkly of "nations who are prepared to evade the definition of amateur in order to parade their best performers".

In World Sports magazine Meisl asked: "What sense can it make when, under the sacred Olympic flag, a few almost amateur teams have to compete against Shamateurs  of various hues and several super professional sides, usual known as Shamateurs (State Amateurs)? No sense at all of course."

The problem was to dog football until at last the professionals were finally admitted to Olympic tournaments in the eighties.

Philip Barker, one of the world's most renowned sports historians, is the author of The History of the Olympic Torch, published by Amberley recently. To order a copy click here. 

Euro 2012 football addicts could be forgiven for thinking that Miners Frolic is something they did before games at the Donbass Arena in the coal country of Ukraine.

Assuming they are also Olympics fans, by the end of this month they may know better.

Miners Frolic is a 14-year-old dark bay thoroughbred who is set to be part of a formidable-looking British eventing team at London 2012 in Greenwich Park.

Indeed, for my money, his inclusion is one of the stories of the host nation's rather problematical team selection process so far.

As a double bronze-medallist, along with rider Tina Cook, from Beijing – or rather Hong Kong – four years ago, there are some sports in which his selection would have been largely a formality.

But this is equestrianism, a sport in which all competitors are partnerships, and the engine-room of each partnership is a surprisingly delicate half-tonne mammal subject to a daunting array of possible injury risks and health hazards that could – and all too often do - strike at the most inopportune moments.

If Miners Frolic's connections had any residual doubts about this before the Badminton horse trials in April 2011, they would have been altogether expunged by the end of that summer.

Just before Badminton, Cook (pictured below, with Miners Frolic) found what the horse's co-owner, Valda Embiricos, described to me as "an enormous lump on his withers" which forced the pair's withdrawal from what is always one of the season's showcase events.


"It was so swollen she couldn't get a saddle on," Ms Embiricos explained.

"We still don't know what it was."

This turned out to be just the start of the horse's problems.

By June, he was reported to be fighting for his life in Arundel Equine Hospital after coming down with colitis, a painful gut disorder.

In the end he won the battle, drawing on reserves of toughness that may stand him in good stead among the twists and gradients of the Olympic cross-country course.

"He is a tremendous fighter and battler," Ms Embiricos said admiringly.

"It's his courage that got him through."

There is another yet more traumatic reason why the last 12 months has been extraordinarily tough for the 41-year-old Cook.


In February, she lost her father, the former champion National Hunt jockey Josh Gifford, a charismatic and universally respected figure in the world of horse racing.

As trainer, Gifford was responsible for Aldaniti, one of the best-known Grand National winners of all time.

Aldaniti, who won the 1981 race partnered by the redoubtable Bob Champion (pictured above, with Aldaniti), was owned by Ms Embiricos's husband, Nick.

As I now realise looking back, I was sitting in front of the family hearth in Sussex asking Gifford to reminisce about his own days in the saddle in the 1960s almost exactly one week before Cook discovered the lump on the remarkable horse which, when not competing, goes by the name of Henry.

They are not there yet; even at this advanced stage there is still a long list of mishaps that could put them, or any member of the equestrian squad, out of the Games.

But if Miners Frolic – Henry - can leap the Greenwich Meridian and carry Cook to a third, or even a fourth, Olympic medal on July 31, it will be a stunning achievement.

I, for one, will be rooting for them.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed by clicking here. 

So David Beckham is left out of Team GB for the Olympics. It's a bit like the Queen being excluded from the Diamond Jubilee celebrations! And yet there it is.

Speaking to the former England football captain last month in Athens, where he joined the official British party during the handing over and transfer of the Olympic Torch, it was obvious how desperate he was to get the nod from the Team GB coach, Stuart Pearce, who had travelled out to the United States a few weeks earlier to watch him playing for LA Galaxy.

When I asked him if Pearce had caught him on a good day, the response betrayed more than a trace of anxiety. "He could have caught me on a better day," Beckham replied with a rueful smile. "He obviously could have caught me on a worse day. For the team it was a bad day. But he knows what my fitness is like, he knows what my passion is like as well, so – we'll see..."

And now Beckham (pictured below) knows. At 37, he will be representing his country at the London Olympics as an ambassador, rather than a wide-right player of immense guile and experience. With, who knows, perhaps one other beacon of hope?

Beckham's response to the unofficial news that he will not be one of the three players over the age of 23 allowed in the 18-man squad – "Naturally I am very disappointed, but there will be no bigger supporter of the team than me" – has been measured and dignified. And run through a classic PR process. Other reports have described the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star as being "devastated".


The decision, it is fair to say, has been greeted with widespread surprise and dismay. For some reason it put me in mind of the IOC session in Copenhagen in 2009 when the voting took place to select the host nation of the 2016 Olympics. President Obama and the First Lady had travelled to Denmark and espoused the cause of Chicago with persuasive force – only for the US candidate to be bombed out in the first round of voting, to a huge gasp in the Bella Conference Centre auditorium.

Many have argued, and do argue, that Beckham has never performed for his country as he has for his clubs. That, I think, is unfair. The truth is, his clubs have usually operated far better as teams than England has in recent years. His last-gasp equaliser against Greece in October 2001, which earned England's qualification for the 2002 World Cup finals, was probably his most telling contribution to the national cause and no more than a fitting emblem of his enduring commitment to the cause on that important day.

But more than a decade on, the case for Beckham's inclusion in the British team for the London Olympics has been inextricably linked with a debate about the basis on which he might be picked – would it be as a player or as an iconic brand?

When that question was raised with Beckham in Athens, with the word "glamour" also being inserted, it earned a swift and pretty cross response.

"I've always found that question a little bit disrespectful," Beckham said. "I don't want to be picked on a shirt sale or as a stadium-filler. I want to be picked on what I can bring to the team. It's what happened throughout my career and I don't want that to change."


On that basis, he cannot really complain – especially if, as has been reported, it came down to a decision between playing him or his old Manchester United colleague Ryan Giggs, who missed out on collecting a 13th Premier League winners' medal this year by a matter of goal difference.

The news about Beckham has come in a week where another debate, albeit in a lower key, has been taking place over the status of Mo Farah – who, on Wednesday night, became the first man to retain the European 5,000 metres title and is now homing in on a twin 5,000/10,000m challenge at the London Olympics.

Farah's decision to run only the heats of the 1,500m at last weekend's Olympic trials in Birmingham, and the trademark "Mobot" celebration (pictured above) in which he engaged while 100 metres from the finish line, have both been criticised, most fiercely by former British 1,500m runner Anthony Whiteman (pictured below).

Whiteman's column in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph firstly accused a "showboating" Farah of being "disrespectful" to the athletes he beat in Birmingham, of whom the 40-year-old was one. The former international also criticised Farah's decision not to run in the final: "That is moving away from athletics and towards celebrity. Jessica Ennis would not have done that – she is an athlete first and a celebrity second."

The "Mobot" – which involves Farah forming an M-shape over his head with both arms – came into being when he appeared on the Sky One show A League Of Their Own. Its presenter, James Corden, suggested that the Londoner should get himself a trademark pose along the lines of Usain Bolt; fellow guest Clare Balding had the idea of the YMCA-style letter shape and Corden thought up the name.


Clearly it was something conceived of in a light-hearted, rather than commercial, spirit. Farah has insisted the Mobot's appearance in Birmingham was not intended to be disrespectful to fellow athletes and he has also apologised to any spectators who might have bought tickets expecting to see him run in the 1500m final.

Farah is a hugely talented athlete and a lovely character. But while he meant no disrespect by running a 1500m heat at the trials before concentrating on a prize worth far more than a national title, he has inevitably disrespected the weekend's competition by that choice of action.

In July 1995, Britain's reigning world 110m hurdles champion and world record holder, Colin Jackson, ran just one round of the 100m sprint at the national championships at the same Alexander Stadium track in Birmingham before withdrawing and then racing on the same weekend in Italy.

That caused such a row that Jackson and the national federation became involved in a stand-off, and the hurdler did not defend his world title that year. While Jackson maintained that he had withdrawn because of injury, but had then competed on the Sunday in order to put it to the test after intensive treatment, his actions were seen as a snub to the trials.

Farah is not a celebrity. He is someone rightly famous for his athletic talent and pleasing personality. But last weekend he took a little step down a road he would be better retreating from – and, to be fair, that retreat, with suitable apologies, has already been made.

Beckham is a celebrity, and some feel he has paid a heavy price for it this week. But he is, one hopes, still enough of a footballer to recognise that the decision made has been, essentially, a footballing one.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

Almost eight years after they adopted Heather Small's anthem "Proud" for their first big production number of the Olympic bid, London 2012 has promised to "Rock the Games".

The Olympics have always had a soundtrack, although in early years, it was very formal.

In 1894, when Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin organised a meeting at the Sorbonne to revive the Olympics. Gabriel Faure's "Hymn to Apollo" was performed.

"The playing of this sacred piece of music created the desired effect. A subtle feeling of emotion spread through the auditorium and Hellenism infiltrated the entire hall." wrote Coubertin. The first Olympics of the modern era were duly fixed for 1896 in Athens.

The Olympic anthem, composed by Spiros Samaras of Corfu, delighted everybody including the Greek King who called for an encore. Yet it disappeared from international Olympic ceremonies for over half a century.

In 1908, the Games were held in London, but Coubertin was unhappy at the absence of suitable music.

"I am continually astonished at the lack of interest shown in the idea of combining sports meetings and open air choral performances," he said. "How much more perfect the whole effect would have been if there had been one of those mass choirs which excel in England performing the incomparable cantatas of Handel?"

The 1908 Games did at least give rise to a popular song. Irving Berlin's "Dorando" told the story of the gallant but unsuccessful Italian marathon runner Dorando Pietri.

At the 1912 Stockholm Games, trumpeters sounded a fanfare from the top of the stadium ramparts and it became possible to win an Olympic medal for musical composition in artistic contests, part of the official programme until 1948.

By the 1936 Games in Berlin, Richard Strauss had been ordered to compose an Olympic hymn but he was not happy in his work.

"I kill the boredom of the advent hours by writing an Olympic hymn for the proles, I of all people who hate and despise sports," he wrote.

It was declared "the Olympic hymn for all time" but after the War, London organisers rejected a German piece of music.


The conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent (pictured above), in charge of music in 1948, remembered a hymn by English composer Roger Quilter. With words by Rudyard Kipling, Sargent felt "Non Nobis Domine" fitted the bill.

Mass choirs were to perform it at Wembley.

"The traditional dress for previous Olympic choirs has been white for the ladies, and white shirts and grey flannels for the gentlemen, but the vagaries of the English climate hardly justify any insistence on this. The committee feel it should be left to your discretion."

In fact, the real danger was the instruments going out of tune on a blazing hot day. The choirs and the massed bands of the Brigade of Guards sweltered under their uniforms.

A few days later, Sargent conducted a special concert for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the Royal Albert Hall. It included "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", Verdi's "Un ballo in maschera" and Elgar's rousing "Cockaigne Overture".

By 1954 the IOC were in on the musical act. Prince Pierre of Monaco announced a competition with a first prize of $1,000 (£640/€800) to find a new Olympic hymn.  From nearly 400 entries, the judges, including Pablo Casals and Aaron Copland, chose what Prince Pierre later described as: "a virile and touching prayer...an important work capable of imposing itself on the memory of the crowds."


Written by Polish composer Michal Spisak (pictured above), it was performed in Melbourne in 1956, but difficulties over copyright meant it was never heard again. So after more than 50 years, the original 1896 hymn by Samaras was brought back in 1958. It can be heard to this day.

It was now the television age and with it came pop music. German composer Helmut Zacharias penned the catchy Tokyo Melody for 1964 and similar songs for Mexico and Munich, but Tchaikovsky's great symphony Pathétique still began the grandiose 1980 Opening in Moscow. And who could forget the pianists dressed from head to toe in blue performing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue at Los Angeles in 1984?

Those Games also had an official album of music, full of pumping inspirational numbers, including "Reach Out" by Giorgio Moroder.

"Come play to win, never Give in, the time is right for you to come and make your stand!"

In 1988, Moroder was also responsible for perhaps the most enduring Olympic pop Song. "Hand in Hand" was performed by the group Koreana.


"Its topicality was a factor in its popularity," wrote Seoul 1988 chief Park Seh-jik.

Performed in Korean and English, the refrain was particularly powerful:

"Breaking down the walls that come between us for all time"

As a result of that line it was banned in the GDR, though when the Wall fell, they sang it loud and proud in Berlin.

No less a figure than Andrew Lloyd Webber was persuaded to write for the 1992 Barcelona Games. "Amigos Para Sempre" (Friends for Life) featured Sarah Brightman (pictured below, left) on vocals. She returned to the Olympic fold 16 years later in Beijing to record the haunting "You and Me".


In the interim, the "Official" song of the Games had taken on a life of its own. In 1996 we had "The Power of the Dream" by Celine Dion, but also "Reach" by Gloria Estefan which headlined an Olympic album of Latin music.

In Sydney, "Dare to Dream" by Olivia Newton John and John Farnham vied with and Tina Arena's "The Flame", "Under Southern Skies" by 13-year-old Nikki Webster – 12 years later she has a rather raunchier style.

In 2004 even the Torch Relay got its own song. "Pass the Flame" proved a big hit in Athens.

It was a Greek composer who wrote perhaps the most famous Olympic music of all.  "Chariots of Fire" by Vangelis will be heard many times this summer, not least because the story of Abrahams and Liddell will be played out again on the stage in London's West End.

Philip Barker, one of the world's most renowned sports historians, is an expert on music at the Olympics. He is also the author of The History of the Olympic Torch, published by Amberley last month. To order a copy click here.

It feels like the countdown to London 2012 has been going on for far longer than seven years but it was still a little sad as we today reached the final tangible milestone on the road to the Olympic Opening Ceremony –  one month to go.

To mark the occasion, the city appeared ready to pull out all the stops as they decided to unveil a giant set of Olympic Rings at Tower Bridge – probably London's most famous landmark.

Part one of the job was already done as the rain stayed away.

But despite the fact that I had turned up early, I saw no sign of the iconic Rings at all.

We ticked closer to 10am and still nothing happened but in true London 2012 style, everything went off precisely as planned.

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson, who was on the River Thames in a boat located just in front of Tower Bridge, pointed straight ahead and as if by magic, the giant Rings lowered themselves mechanically into position.

Applause followed from Johnson (pictured below, left) and the other senior dignitaries on the boat, including a smiling London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe (pictured below, right).


They were well-deserved as the three tonne Rings, measuring 25 metres wide and 11.5m tall, looked hugely impressive framed against Tower Bridge.

But despite the magnitude of the event, it proved just a prelude for my colleagues in the media and I as the one month to go milestone also marked the opening of the first London 2012 venue.

It was the Main Press Centre (MPC).

It took several security checkpoints to finally make it to the MPC but it was worth the wait. The giant structure, measuring 31,000 square metres, stood gleaming maroon with a distinctive "Welcome" or "Bienvenue" written across it in striking blue.


Around 6,000 of the world's top media will use the venue during the Games and upon its full completion, a 200m-long High Street featuring a range of shops will be in place.

The High Street is not yet fully operational but what is fully operational is the MPC itself – and the inside is truly stunning.

Pink and blue is the theme, as it is with the majority of the London 2012 'look and feel', while it is simply so big that it is not all that easy to navigate.

Upon my arrival, I was informed a press conference was taking place and I was swiftly led by some helpful Games Makers to a lift and up several levels to a giant press conference room that seats over 800. Upon our arrival, London 2012 chief executive Paul Deighton, director of sport Debbie Jevans and Sport and Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson explained that spectators attending the Games will be treated to in-ear commentary, music, presenters for different sports and a few other surprises.


"Inspiring people to engage with sport has always been central to our vision," Jevans explained.

"There are 26 Olympic sports and many people will be seeing these for the first time so we will explain some of the intricacies in an innovative and informative way.

"We also want to ensure the way we present sport adds to the experience of the spectators in the venues and builds the atmosphere."

It was another announcement in keeping with the London 2012 plan to do things a little bit differently and in their opinion, a little better than before.

Deighton explained they remain on track to have everything "well ahead of schedule" and if the state-of-the-art facilities at the MPC are anything to go by, London 2012 could prove quite the exceptional Games so many have long predicted.

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames. To follow him on Twitter click here.

The British Olympic Association (BOA) chairman Colin Moynihan has done his utmost to ensure that Britain's Olympians go forth to the Games in style and comfort – Team GB House in Stratford where they can escape for a spot of R&R with families and friend is quite stunning.

But whether they will come fourth in the gold medal table is, he says, "an incredibly big ask."

Moynihan reckons: "It is going to be very tough. We may have set our expectations too high."

He says he does not altogether share the confidence of those who believe Team GB will surpass the achievement of 19 golds in Beijing – 47 medals in all – and fourth place in the table.

Not for the first time this brings him into conflict with the man who set those expectations at UK Sport, Peter Keen. The architect of UK Sport's "no compromise" policy, Keen (pictured below), newly and deservedly awarded a CBE as he steps down from his full-time post, has suggested Britain might even finish third, thanks to Lottery cash.

His blog last week on insidethegames claimed that Olympic athletes who succeed without central funding are "the exception rather than the rule".


He adds: "'No compromise' is a phrase we refer to a lot at UK Sport. It represents not only our approach to investment in Olympic and Paralympic sport, but the mind-set and philosophy we believe is paramount to achieving greatness...compromise was exactly what British athletes their coaches had to do to just make it to the start line before National Lottery funding came along."

Fair enough. But several respondents demurred, one calling his views "sanctimonious humbug". I don't go as far as that, but I do disagree with Keen's basic tenet, which appears to be that Lottery funding is now the be-all and end-all of British sporting success.

It clearly isn't. Hard work, dedication, good coaching and natural talent are far more important. Lottery funding is the welcome icing on the cake, not the main ingredient.

Britain produced plenty of gold medallists long before Lottery funding for sport was a twinkle in John Major's eye.  Some prime examples of go-it-aloners were Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and Daley Thompson, while Keen himself acknowledges Chris Boardman, Sally Gunnell, and our most successful Olympian ever, Steve Redgrave as some who made it without the help of the Lottery's numbers game.

It was also pointed out to Keen that track and field has actually gone backwards since Lottery funding was introduced, with fewer medals in Beijing and Athens than in non-Lottery funded Sydney.

When he suggests that that Olympic athletes who succeed without central funding are "the exception rather than the rule" one presumes he wasn't having a veiled pop at taekwondo's go-it-alone Aaron Cook (pictured below), who seems to be paying a heavy price for opting out of their funding system?


As the jilted Cook fights on in the law courts with the same vigour he doubtless he would have displayed on the ExCeL mat, UK Sport have been curiously muted about any role they may have had in this regrettable affair.

Yet one imagines they would be bound to give wholehearted backing to GB Taekwondo who snubbed Cook in favour of the lesser-accomplished but Lottery-funded Lutalo Muhammad.

After all, it is hardly human nature to applaud someone who has told you to stuff your system, and gone on to do things successfully his way. It would defeat the object of their exercise.

I happen to agree with 99 per cent of the public who believe that Cook was stitched up because the governing body didn't want to lose face.

I like the loner, the maverick, the non-conformist. More often than not they also turn out to be winners.

As I have said before, when an enterprising young athlete elects to forgo using public money, supports himself, trains in his garage and becomes the best in the world at his weight then surely he epitomises what Olympism is about. Or used to be.

Or have we forgotten the basic ethos of the Games?

And answer this: Why is it that Team GB is happy to accommodate a drugs cheat in Dwain Chambers (pictured below), who has absolutely no chance of winning a medal unless Usain Bolt and a fistful of West Indians and Americans pull up to the sound of twanging hamstrings, but not Aaron Cook, a clear favourite for gold.


One is being fast-tracked apparently without even achieving a qualifying mark, the other frozen out. How crazy is that?

The trouble is, sports governing bodies are laws unto themselves.

I suspect that the BOA, whose hand has been forced over Chambers, has much sympathy for Cook's situation, though they can't say so publicly, having to abide by the prevailing regulations.

After all, you can't beat the system.

The BOA and UK Sport must get this 'system' sorted well before Rio 2016. For his part Moynihan assures me he is determined to do so and one hopes UK Sport – and the Sports Minister – will come off the fence in the name of justice.

Of course funding has greatly enhanced British prospects in a multitude of sports. It would be deemed a disaster if it hadn't.

But remember that for every well-provided winner who stands atop the Olympic podium there will be a dozen lottery-subsidised also-rans who finish somewhere down the field in double figures.

Most of them probably can be identified now.

So should that be considered money wasted?

Absolutely not.

But on the other hand should the potential medal winner who hasn't cost the public a penny at least be afforded an equal chance of glory?

Sadly it won't happen while there is no longer room for compromise and sport is governed by self-interest.

What a pity there is not another "system" in place – that of the wild card, an idea the then International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch was said to have seriously considered when no less a personage than his idol Coe (pictured below) was controversially omitted from the 1988 Seoul Olympics by intransigent selectors.


Many thought he would have won another gold.

I believe they have wild cards in Olympic tennis – so why not other sports?

It would certainly liven things up and correct miscarriages of justice.

What also needs to be sorted before Rio is another system which allows coaches like Charles van Commenee to ride roughshod over Britain's legacy aspirations by cynically importing athletes with only  tenuous links to this country to gain Olympic experience (because few will actually win medals) at the expense of home-grown talent.

Fortunately wrestling wasn't allowed to get away with it altogether but athletics, basketball and to some extent handball have created an unhealthy and unwelcome precedent.

That's really the area where Keen's "no compromise" edict needs to be applied.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

The announcement from the Saudi Arabian Embassy in London that the country's Olympic Committee will "oversee participation of women athletes who can qualify" at the Olympics should rightly be celebrated.

As Brunei and Qatar have already announced they will bring female athletes to the Games, it looks likely that after London, every country in the world will have been represented by a woman at the Olympics. Although it has been 116 years since the first modern Games, this should be applauded and recognised as a key landmark.

The Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation (WSFF) has been part of an international campaign demanding change which has had a direct impact. A senior Saudi official was quoted as saying: "Partly because of the mounting criticism we woke up and realised we had to deal with this."

However, as it stands, the announcement is more symbolic than revolutionary. It is being reported that as a result of the policy change Dalma Malhas (pictured below), a show jumper based outside of Saudi Arabia, will compete in London. But this should not be seen as an end point. Malhas is likely to be the centre of a media circus in London, and while she and this decision should be applauded, she should not be used to hide the continuing circumstances in Saudi where women have to overcome significant obstacles to train and play sport.


It is significant that it seems that she will be in London as a full member of the Saudi team as it had been rumoured that she would be forced to compete under the International Olympic Committee (IOC) flag. President Jacques Rogge should be congratulated for not accepting this compromise which would still have meant that Saudi Arabia was directly at odds with the Olympic Charter which reads: "Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, sex or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement."

However, the true test of the Kingdom's appetite for genuine reform will come after London's Closing Ceremony, when the eyes of the world move on to the next hot topic. There needs to be substantial relaxation of the rules and regulations that obstruct female participation in sport in Saudi; an obvious starting point would be to overturn the ban on sport in girls' state schools. However, even that would not go far enough.

It seems that the Saudi position has moved from "steadfast objection" to "toleration", however it needs to move a further step into "active support". To ensure that there is more than a token Saudi female in Rio, substantial support structures, coaching programmes and competition opportunities need to be developed for girls and women at all levels of the sporting pyramid. We at WSFF will be looking to work with the IOC and other partners to ensure that the Saudi Government really invests in women's sport over the coming years.


This will not be easy; it is not just women's position in sport which is under scrutiny in a country where powerful religious and political forces continue to oppose further female integration in society. As the Saudi spokesman is quoted as saying: "It's very sensitive, King Abdullah is trying to initiate reform in a subtle way, by finding the right balance between going too fast or too slow."

So by no means does this decision signal a complete victory; however it is a very significant step forward and should be celebrated. Here's hoping that the performance of Malhas inspires many of her compatriots and reassures many of her doubters.

Tim Woodhouse is head of policy at the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation. Follow the organisation on Twitter here.

They say there's an exception to every rule. While most Olympic host cities have been left disappointed by the long-term impact of their investments, the Barcelona Games (Closing Ceremony pictured below) are credited with transforming the city's economic fortunes. Hoping that they can learn the magic formula for success and apply it to East London, those responsible for delivering the London Olympics have been regular visitors to Spain's second city.

Anyone expecting a similar kind of economic boost is likely to end up disappointed, but plans to use the Olympics as a catalyst for some much needed housing investment could still end up yielding a positive outcome for London.

Apart from the sun, sand and sea, one of the main differences between Barcelona and East London is their starting points. Before the Olympics, Barcelona was an underperforming city with a lot of unfulfilled tourism potential. The large scale infrastructure investments and massive publicity boost associated with hosting the Games helped the city reposition itself as a major tourist destination. As a result, the number of people visiting Barcelona every year (as measured by the number of people staying in the city's hotels) has tripled from just 2.5 million in 1993 to 7.4 million in 2011.


London, of course, is already a leading tourist hub, with about 15 million international visitors per year, so the potential for a Barcelona-style expansion in visitor numbers is limited. Some might argue that the Olympic Park has the potential to act as a major tourist attraction, but one has to question how big a draw it will be for tourists 15 or 20 years from now. There is bound to be some temporary boost to tourism, but a sustained impact seems unlikely.

A review of plans for the area after the Games shows a refreshing realism about this. Rather than expecting the area to become a new tourism or business centre, planners have earmarked sites for some much needed housing; the chronic shortage of which forces Londoners to live in some of the most expensive property in Europe.

Companies have already been shortlisted to build Chobham Manor (pictured below), the first new Olympic Park neighbourhood to be built after the Games comes to an end, and a deal is expected to be finalised later this month. A further four neighbourhoods will follow, complementing the more glitzy plans for a "city within a city" in neighbouring Stratford.


There are reasons to be optimistic, but we shouldn't get too carried away. Academics often make the point that simply building new houses, shops or stadiums doesn't make an area more prosperous. For that you need entrepreneurs, skilled workers and thriving businesses, which are all much tougher nuts to crack.

In Barcelona, this demand side stimulus came from the long-term increase in tourism, which now acts as a key source of income for the city. It might be unrealistic to expect the London Games to have a similar kind of impact, but there's a chance that won't be quite so important in London's case. After all, the United Kingdom capital is already one of the world's most high performing urban economies, so it's less in need of the economic boost that Barcelona so clearly benefited from. Instead, what London needs more than anything else is housing. If the Games can act as a catalyst for increasing the supply of homes then London might provide another exception to the rule.

Chris Webber is senior editor at the Economist Group. Watch Economist Conferences' free live webinar on July 11 2012 to hear independent experts discuss how businesses can benefit from major events like the Olympics. Visit www.thegamesforbusiness.com

The European Championship once again raises the question of whether we are right in believing that sport, and in particular football, can reach out to society in the way nothing else can.

The answer so far from the Euros is a chilling one: those of us who believe in the redemptive power of modern sport need to re-examine our beliefs – or at least ask if we do not need to prepare much better before we burden sport with this heavy load of transforming society.

The Championship has been plagued by constant allegations of racism. They began even before the tournament began and have now led to UEFA charging Croatia with racist behaviour directed at Mario Balotelli (pictured below, in blue). It has raised the question: should UEFA have taken the competition to this part of the world?

Now, critics will say the same question was raised when FIFA decided to award the World Cup to South Africa. For years leading up to 2010, many were convinced that it was a mistake to take it to Africa, particularly South Africa, and there were many fears of a social disaster. The fears not only concerned possible mayhem at the grounds but other issues: would visitors be mugged outside the grounds, women attacked, possibly raped, and life and limb not in any way safe?

Instead, my experience, and that of everyone, was that 2010 was one of the best organised World Cups in recent memory. There were no problems, whether inside the stadium or outside. True, the vuvuzela (pictured below) did cause a noise problem inside the ground, but this could be seen as part of the rich cultural experience of going to a foreign land and experiencing a very different way of watching the game.

Critics have suggested that South Africans managed to present a face of their country that probably does not quite exist by making sure that all possible resources were diverted from everywhere else to make the World Cup look great. But however it was done, it happened.


But what the South African authorities could not do was make the football good. On the field of play the action was often awful. I cannot honestly look back on a single match that was memorable. Not even Brazil worked their usual magic. I can well recall how defensive they were even against North Korea, making their first appearance at this level since 1966. The Brazilians later justified it on the grounds that the old days of "you score four, we score five" have gone.

The final was the ultimate expression of this soulless football. The Dutch, who are the nearest to sharing Brazil's football culture in Europe, played such a percentage game laced with so many fouls that many neutrals were very relieved Spain won.

The Euros make you believe that if not beautiful football then thrilling, competitive football at the highest level of the game is possible. Right from the first match we have seen inventive teams willing to take chances and show us how brilliant the game can be. But, in a very painful irony, the net result of all this beautiful football on the field of play were scenes with spectators inside the stadium and out of it – as in the Russia versus Poland match – which have been some of the worst we've seen. Certainly not since the Euros of 2000, more than a decade ago.


Fears that we may face problems were highlighted in a Panorama programme just before the Euros, which showed chilling scenes from Poland and Ukraine. It made me go back to my own visit to Poland in the spring of 2008 when I made a BBC film there on the racism.

Let me quote from my BBC blog at that time: "I found racism that was strident and in your face in a way it never was in Britain, even in the very bad old days of English football in the 1970s and 1980s. Then, as one of the regular football reporters at the Sunday Times, I spent my Saturdays at football matches and had several first-hand experiences of racism. Much of it was very unpleasant. But in Poland it was on a different, deeper and much nastier level. In a street in central Warsaw, not far from the hotel where I was staying, there was a lot of graffiti about 'white power' and the Ku Klux Klan, all associated with the city's main team Legia Warsaw.

"And this wasn't the only place where the problem was evident. One evening, as myself, my cameraman and producer were going about central Warsaw filming our piece for Inside Sport (pictured below), we were approached by a skinhead who said he was a Legia fan and made it clear that he was a racist and keen to broadcast his view. As I interviewed him he told me to go back to my country, meaning India, the land of my birth. He would not look me in the eye as we spoke and at the end of my interview refused to shake my hand. He may have been an exhibitionist and, I must stress, Polish passers-by were embarrassed by what he said and tried to distance themselves from him. But talking to many people, including those running football in Poland, he did not seem untypical of a certain section of Polish fans."


I was told by several people that I, because of my brown skin, would not be safe in more than two or three grounds in Poland. And while I was made very welcome at Legia Warsaw (pictured below, the club's fans), there were areas of its ground I was told I could not go into because of my colour. Dickson Choto, the Zimbabwean international and a Legia Warsaw player, walked me round the stadium and, pointing to a stand, said this was a place where his friends and family were not welcome because of the colour of their skin. He had been subjected to monkey chants and bananas being tossed at him.

What made it worse was that, if his experience was any guide, the Polish authorities seemed to be in denial. Called by the Polish football authorities to a disciplinary hearing, the opposition manager said he did not hear the chants, despite them being heard loud and clear by Dickson's wife, who was at home watching on television. And during my visit I was told very frankly that Poland was not ready to host Euro 2012.

Panorama, which went to Ukraine as well, clearly indicated that in the four years since my visit things had not moved forward in any positive way.


It seems very clear what has happened. UEFA faced a huge problem when Poland and Ukraine, to the shock of everyone and most certainly UEFA President Michel Platini, won the right to host Euro 2012. The big task was to get the stadiums right, and make sure the infrastructure was developed and there were roads and hotels. But as preparations progressed slowly there was talk of pulling the Euros out from these two countries – this was clearly designed to get the host nations going, and in the end, the infrastructure was completed.

However, to change attitudes of people takes much longer. This is particularly so if the people whose minds are to be influenced have rarely, if ever, encountered other humans of diverse backgrounds and colours. Then, in their world where the predominant colour is white, a non-white face can arouse all sorts of emotions, not all of them welcome. Compared to that, building roads and stadiums is child's play.

Sport has the power to bridge cultures, but it requires time and a lot of effort. I know UEFA will deny this but it was too busy with the infrastructure to bother with the inner man and took its eyes of racism issue inherent in these two countries. In UEFA's defence, it has to said, to change the inner man or women is a huge task and it requires more than sport to tackle it.

Mihir Bose is one of the world's most astute observers on politics in sport, particularly football. He wrote formerly for The Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph and was the BBC's head sports editor. Follow him on Twitter.

www.mihirbose.com 

The European Athletics Championships get underway next Wednesday (June 27) at the venue which hosted them 18 years ago – Helsinki. For many attending – me included – the forthcoming competition in the unique surroundings of the 1952 Olympic Stadium will bring back memories of 1994, and mostly happy ones.

Personally, I remember Helsinki 1994 with a tinge of regret over Roger Black's narrow failure to earn a third consecutive European 400 metres title.

He and Du'Aine Ladejo, the extravagantly talented fellow Briton who had emerged at the top level that year and who beat him into second place, never did get along. I can still remember Black's disdain for the way Ladejo showboated home down the final straight on the last leg of the 400m relay, diminishing a massive lead which had been earned by the previous efforts of his team-mates David McKenzie, Black and Brian Whittle. Ladejo still finished almost two seconds clear of the French team, so there was no serious danger of him losing the gold. But his showmanship was not well received.

Those Europeans of 1994 represented a high water mark for British athletics of what, if football were the sport involved, would probably have been called a Golden Generation. The men's 400m individual and relay golds were just two of six earned by Britain.

Colin Jackson (pictured below left), world and Commonwealth champion – and world record holder – retained his European title at 110m hurdles. Linford Christie, the Olympic, world, Commonwealth and defending European 100m champion, won his third successive title. Sally Gunnell joined him in the grand slam club as she added her first European title to the ones she had already earned in the 400m hurdles in the Olympics, World Championships and Commonwealth Games.


And the sixth British gold in 1994? Ah, that was the sweetest of them all...Steve Backley (pictured below) in the javelin.

Backley broke the world record in the javelin, but never quite managed to earn an Olympic title. The reason can be encapsulated in two words: Jan Železný. This phenomenon from what is now the Czech Republic was one of the smaller throwers on the circuit, but his competitive temperament, sublime technique and whiplash speed earned him three successive Olympic golds between 1992 and 2000.

But if the Olympics were Železný's competition in that era, the Europeans were Backley's – even with Železný in them. The affable policeman's son from Sidcup won four successive European golds between 1990 and 2002. But this was surely his most satisfying.

Backley is a Briton, not a Finn, but by the time he competed in Helsinki in 1994 he felt like an adopted son.


It helped that he was then going out with a girl from Oulu – Finland's former sprinter Tula Kangas – but the main reason for the acclamation which, on the night, was second only to that afforded the Helsinki-born former world champion, Seppo Räty, was that Backley was a mighty competitor in a sport that has always held a particular fascination with Finns.

"There are 42,000 people here, and I don't think they were here to watch the 100 metres," said Backley after completing a jubilant, side-stepping victory celebration into the infield with arms raised having seen Železný's last effort fall well short of his own best effort of 85.20 metres, achieved in the second round, and now good enough for gold.

When I spoke to Backley recently he recalled his discovery of just how special his event was to the Finns several years before those Europeans when he had arrived to compete in Helsinki for the first time: "I had just booked into my hotel and was looking around the city when someone came up to me and said 'You are the javelin thrower?' He wasn't anything to do with athletics. He had just seen my picture in the paper. I was told that a crowd of 55,000 would be expected – and that they were coming to watch the javelin.

"The stadium was packed out. And the amazing thing was, when the javelin was over, people started to leave, even though there were track events still to come."


On that occasion, Backley had defeated Seppo Räty (pictured above), the local hero. But for him to do so again in a European Championship was a big ask. And it was an even bigger ask to beat Železný, the reigning Olympic and world champion and world record holder.

"Jan was just in a different league at the time," recalls Backley. "He wasn't the biggest of throwers, but he was kicking backside like it had never been kicked before.

"When we got into the stadium, though, I was rubbing my hands together because there was a screaming headwind. I always competed better in adversity, whether it was rain, a headwind, delay. I could always get my head round things that would put other people off.

I knew I had to get in early and put the pressure on so that there might be a chance Jan would try too hard and maybe implode."

The crowd roared on their home hero with their customary chant – "Sepp-po, Sepp-po" – and Räty, who was seeking to become the first Finn to win the European javelin title since Hannu Siitonen 20 years earlier, got the first round lead with 81.80m. But Backley, accorded only slightly less uproarious support, was in silver position with 81.04m.


"When we had got to the end of the first round I remember thinking to myself 'No one fancies it'," Backley (pictured above) says. "I suddenly got this tremendous surge of adrenaline. I said to myself  'If you can take control of this competition now you can win it.'

"I was always able to throw well into a headwind, where you need to line the javelin up properly and bring the nose down. I launched this beauty into the wind in the second round and it went out to 85.20. That would have been worth about 88, 89 metres with the wind behind it so it was a very creditable championship-winning throw."

Backley's calculations proved correct. Although Räty improved his performance in the fifth round, he could only manage 82.90, eventually settling for silver ahead of Železný, whose best was a second round effort of 82.58.

Now the man who won four consecutive European javelin titles from 1990 to 2002 is looking forward with fascination as the Europeans return to the Finnish capital.

"Europe is steeped in the heritage of javelin competition, and if you add the fact that that this year's Europeans will be in the home of javelin throwing, it's an ideal place to practise your trade," he says.

"If you have got a passion for javelin throwing, Helsinki is the place to be this summer without a shadow of a doubt."

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here.